When Cate Kinkaid receives a frantic call about a triple homicide, she drives to the scene against her better judgement-aren't triple homicides more up the police department's alley?-only to find that the victims are not quite who she expects. Now she has a new rule to add to those she's learned in her short stint as an assistant private investigator: always find out if the victims actually have human DNA. Because these three do not.

But who would shoot this nice lady's dolls? What possible reason could the shooter have? And then there's the startling discovery of another victim, who definitely does have human DNA . . .

Dolled Up to Die Discussion Questions: Lorena McCourtney

1. Jo-Jo seems to think of her dolls as more than inanimate objects. She also refers to customers as “adopting” rather than buying them. Have you ever felt this way about something you’ve made yourself? Or does this strike you as really odd for Jo-Jo to feel this way?

2. Cate can’t carry a gun because she’s still an assistant private investigator, not a fully licensed one. Do you think that when she is a licensed PI she should carry a gun?

3. Jo-Jo has mixed feelings about her former husband, “Eddie the Ex.” She has very derogatory things to say about him and gets as much money as she can out of him. Yet she also makes excuses for him, blaming his leaving her on a “spell” put on him by the new wife. She seems to think she and Eddie might have gotten back together someday and she’s very broken up by his death. Can you understand her mixed feelings? If he had wanted to get back together with her, do you think she should have done it?

4. Jo-Jo’s husband seems to have some sort of “midlife crisis” when he dumped her and changed his life totally. Have you ever known someone, man or woman, maybe even a spouse, who’s done the “midlife” thing and changed completely? How did you handle it? Can people get through it without breaking up a marriage?

5. Have you known someone who fussed as much as Robyn about the minor details of her wedding? Do you think a wedding is a time for as much extravagance and lavishness as possible? Or should a wedding be a more low-key affair, with more concentration on the vows and less on the extravagance? Does making it a huge event make the marriage any more likely to last a lifetime? Or, if the wedding is not made into such a once-in-a-lifetime event, does that mean the participants have some doubts that it is going to last? What should a wedding be?

6. Cate is quite shocked when Mitch gets a motorcycle and expects her to ride on it with him. Have you ever had someone you care about do something such as this that really startles you? How did you feel about it?

7. What do you think about a store like the Mystic Mirage? Would you be inclined to shop there, even for something like clothes or sandals?

8. Celeste does what she calls regressions into past lives. What do you think about this? Do you think people who believe they’ve had these past lives are being fooled by her? Where do their so-called “memories” of those past lives come from? Is there danger in meddling around in all this?